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Sensing Arctic Sea Ice

The age of Arctic sea ice can be determined using sensors on Earth observing satellites. Old sea ice (4-5 years old or older) is generally thicker and whiter, and shows more relief. Young sea ice is generally thinner and flatter, and has a blueish tint closer to that of the open sea. Explore Arctic sea ice age data at NASA's NSIDC DAAC.

Arctic sea ice reached a record low seasonal maximum extent of 14.52 million square kilometers (5.607 million square miles) on March 24, 2016. The average Arctic sea ice extent for March 2016 was 14.43 million square kilometers (5.57 million square miles), the second lowest in the satellite record.

The lightning climatology reveals Earth’s lightning hotspot, located over Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. This area experiences very localized and persistent thunderstorms, which account for the observed high flash rate density. Learn more about NASA lightning research and measurements.

The LIS Very High Resolution Climatology datasets were derived from 16 years of lightning (1998-2013) observations collected by the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS). This data presents a higher resolution gridded lightning climatology dataset than previously available, allowing lighting trends and hotspots to be studied.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission provides global observations of rain and snow. The IMERG "Late Run" data set is a near real-time data product combining observations from several different satellites that are inter-calibrated with radar instruments on the GPM Core Observatory satellite.

As shown in this image of IMERG data, averaged over March 7-9, 2016, with the NASA Giovanni system, heavy rain fell in central and southern Arkansas and along the Arkansas/Louisiana border (indicated by the red to yellow color). The heavy rain led to major flooding.

In this false-color Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image acquired on September 14, 2015, bare surfaces (such as soil) are red and orange; vegetation is green. The large dark spots are glaciated areas that are smooth and have little radar backscatter.

Each full color cycle, or fringe, in this Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image acquired on April 8, and April 20, 2016 indicates motion of 8.5 cm (3.35 in) caused by the 4/16/2016 Kumamoto earthquake. Read about the many uses of Sentinel-1A data.

This Joint NASA/NOAA Suomi-NPP/VIIRS image acquired on March 12, 2016, shows high concentrations of microscopic organisms called chlorophyll (as shown by swirls of blue and green). The Patagonian Sea in the southwest Atlantic Ocean is one of the most biologically productive regions in the global ocean.